Teaching, learning and assessment 2024/2025
Support for vocational qualifications
Last updated: 3 December 2024
Use this page to keep up to date with all the latest news and activites for our vocational qualifications.
Complete your cohort declaration by 31 January
We’ve now opened your cohort declaration for you to complete by 31 January 2025. Opening earlier than ever, we’re giving you more time to complete the work you need to do before submitting your cohort declaration. This year you will complete this in the VQ Learner Tracker, a module within Pearson Progress we’ll be using to track your learners from registration to completion.
Join us for a Q&A session
We’re hosting live events throughout January to guide you through the process, including demos of the VQ Learner Tracker.
Friday 17 January 2:00–3:00 p.m. | Register to join
Wednesday 22 January 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. | Register to join
Cohort declaration FAQs
You need to log into the VQ Learner using your Edexcel Online credentials. Once logged in, you’ll see that we've reviewed your registrations and added a “summer 2025” tag where we think that learners should be expecting an overall qualification result on results day.
You need to review these tags, adding or removing them where appropriate, so we have an accurate view of your summer 2025 cohort. There is no need to change your learners estimated completion dates; just update the tags in the VQ Learner Tracker and we’ll do the rest.
We’ve set up all exams officers, exams assistants and exams managers with access to the VQ Learner Tracker, and you should be able to log in with your Edexcel Online credentials.
You can follow the instructions in our support article.
It’s essential that we have a shared view of all learners who are expecting to receive a qualification result on the August results days. We can then work in partnership to ensure learners receive their results on time.
When you log into the VQ Learner Tracker, you can click on the banner at the top of the screen to view the declaration. There is then an option to select that you pledge to complete the declaration by the 31 January. deadline.
As head of centre, you should ensure your exams officer has the support they need to complete this activity. They will ask for your authorisation before submitting the cohort declaration, and you should be confident that this work has been completed.
Although this activity will be completed by your exams officer, they may need your support to complete this activity. As a quality nominee, if you’ve had access to Pearson Progress to complete your Annual Quality Declaration, you will already have access to the VQ Learner Tracker if you would like to review any registrations
Your key dates and term-time checkpoints for 2024/25
Following feedback from you, our BTEC key dates schedule for 2024/25 has been designed to ensure BTEC results are delivered successfully to all learners expecting a result in summer 2025.
This year we're giving you more time to complete key term-time checkpoints following several improvements to streamline the process. You can find a summary of these updates, along with the improvements planned for 2025, in the new BTEC key dates schedule.
This schedule covers BTEC Firsts, BTEC Nationals, BTEC Tech Awards and BTEC Technicals only.
We're opening this six weeks earlier to give you more time to complete the necessary tasks before signing your declaration.
We’ve brought the BTEC deletion deadline forward so you can complete this work
alongside the cohort declaration, ahead of the busy January exam season.
The deadline for your head of centre to confirm which learners are expecting a qualification result in August 2024, following a check that all estimated completion dates are accurate in VQ Learner Tracker.
The deadline for your head of centre to reconfirm which learners are expecting a qualification result in August 2024, following any changes you might have made since your January declaration.
All internally assessed unit grades to be submitted and full award claims to be made by 5 July.
We are unable to guarantee learners will receive a qualification result on learner results days if qualification claims or internal assessment grades are provided after 5 July. If we do receive qualification claims or internal grades for learners after the 5 July deadline, Pearson reserves the right to charge centres £100 for each of these BTEC Level 3 National learners that receives a result on learner results days.
Catch up on what's been happening this month for Vocational Qualifications.
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What to expect in the winter term
Exams officers
Your winter term checklist
Not sure where to start? Download our exams officer January–March checklist: five things to help you meet the first deadlines of 2025 and have asuccessful January exam series.
If you’re a new exams officer, we need to know so we can make sure you are fully onboarded with all the access you need to begin making registration and entries.
We have produced a new series of short interactive walkthroughs, available on our main exams officer support page. These use a quick and intuitive format to help you navigate common processes on Pearson systems.
Explore our support for exams officers
We have a range of bitesize on-demand training modules to cover all the important administrative processes for the new term on the Pearson Development Hub.
Find out more about training on the Pearson Development Hub
We've also created a dedicated support article providing quick links to all the information you'll for a successful start to the year.
Exams officer support: autumn and winter essential information
Quality nominees
Our dedicated team of Vocational Quality Assurance Managers have a wealth of support to help you get the year off to a great start, whether you’re a new or experienced quality nominee. From detailed centre guides to regular live events, be sure to make the most of the resources and support available.
Explore support for quality nominees at the home of quality assurance
Heads of centre
We want to work in partnership with you and your vocational team throughout the year. Make sure you are familiar with the processes and deadlines involved in delivering vocational qualifications so you can best support your administrative and delivery teams.
As head of centre, you should ensure your exams officer has the support they need to complete your centre's cohort declaration by 31 January. They will ask for your authorisation before submitting the cohort declaration, and you should be confident that this work has been completed.
Teachers
Our team of subject advisors are experts in their fields, many of them former teachers. They are here to support you throughout the year and can help with all your subject-specific queries. They offer monthly newsletters and one-to-one appointments, and you can raise cases with them via the Pearson support portal.
ResultsPlus is our online results analysis tool for teachers. Included as part of your qualification fees, ResultsPlus gives you a detailed breakdown of your students’ performance in Pearson Edexcel exams and BTEC external assessments.
We have a wealth of training events available for teachers, with both live, in-person events and recorded sessions you can access at a time that suits you.
Learners & parents
Replace your original certificate for your qualification, change your name on your certificate and more.
If you’re a private candidate looking for information on where you can take Pearson qualification exams, where to find past papers or if you’re not happy with your results, we’re here to help.
Post-16 L3 qualifications Review
For the latest informaton about the future of post-16 level 3 vocational qualifications in England, please see our dedicated web page.